Information Service

We provide free, specialist help to community groups and voluntary organisations wanting to raise money. Our information workers can provide you with details of national and local charitable trusts, central and local government grant programmes, and other non-statutory funders like the National Lottery.

This service is open to all voluntary and community groups operating in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, Sheffield, and South Yorkshire-wide.

Click here to find out how to request a funding search for your group or project.

latest update 4 April 2008
(site usually updated Thursdays)

Where our information comes from

Most of the information we have is about grant making charitable trusts. The majority of this is compiled by Directory of Social Change and we access it through their trustfunding website. We also do our own research about local trusts throughout South Yorkshire. We research and produce lots of information about other statutory and non-statutory funders like local Community Chest Programmes, BBC Children in Need and the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme.

Our information comes from several sources:

• www.trustfunding.org.uk - website of Directory of Social Change (DSC) (will open in a new window).
  
  
• Websites, leaflets and guidelines produced by funders.
  
  
• General directories of grant making trusts like the Directory of Grant-Making Trusts published by
  the Charities Aid Foundation.
  
  
• Specialist directories, such as the Environmental Funding Guide, published by DSC.
  
  
• Journals, newsletters and newspapers.
  
  
• The Bureau's own research.
  
  
• Feedback from Bureau users.

Initially we use a specialist computer programme called FunderFinder (will open in a new window) to search through thousands of trusts. FunderFinder is based on a classification of charitable trusts' stated policies broken down by 3 categories - people, subjects and place. We then use the more detailed information about each trust on the trustfunding website to choose the most relevant funders for your project. Finally we search through our information about local trusts and other statutory and non-statutory funders to complete the funding search.

The quality of information available about trusts varies enormously. Some provide lots of details about what they fund and how; others give very little. We believe that it is in the interest of both the grant-makers and the grant-seekers for trusts to be open and clear about their funding policies and procedures. This would save much wasted time for everyone in making inappropriate applications which are immediately rejected.

Wherever possible we will continue to try and improve the quality and amount of information about trusts.

You can help us improve our information by letting us know the outcome of your funding applications - whether you got a positive or negative response and if an address or policy has changed.

This kind of feedback helps us build a fuller and more accurate picture of what a trust might fund in the future, which in turn will help other local groups.

So, please contact us to let us know how you got on.

For more information

Contact our Information Workers, Amanda Bennett, Bianca King or Nila Wills
email: info@syfab.org.uk

Funding Advice Line: 0114 276 5460

We're open office hours, however the best time to speak to an information worker directly is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10.00 - 4.00 and Wednesdays 1.00 - 4.00.

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